Feb 16, 20228:40 PM - edited Apr 1, 202210:11 AM
HubSpot Employee
When have you seen force or friction impact a company’s ability to grow?
Revenue Operations, or RevOps, is integral to taking an inbound approach to business and speeding up your company’s flywheel.
Why are those important? Let’s define terms first:
Inbound is a method of attracting, engaging, and delighting people to grow a business that provides value and builds trust.
The flywheel is a model adapted by HubSpot to explain the momentum you gain when you align your entire organization around delivering a remarkable customer experience. Rather than thinking of your business as a funnel, with leads coming in at the top and customers coming out at the bottom, think about your business as a circle — as a flywheel.
When thinking about how to spin your company’s flywheel faster with RevOps, there are two important concepts to keep in mind:
Force is what allows your business to scale by spinning your flywheel faster and faster. This looks like when your customer has a great customer experience and tells their friends and colleagues about it.
Friction is what grinds your business to a halt, if not addressed. This is when your company provides your customers with a bad customer experience, and they also tell their friends and colleagues about it. In turn, this slows down your flywheel.
Here’s what I’d love to hear:
Share a time when you had an amazing customer experience and you saw a company grow faster and faster because of their wonderful customer care.
Share a time when you had a poor customer experience (please don’t name names or organizations) and how you saw that type of poor care affect their business.
When have you seen force or friction impact a company’s ability to grow?
Share a time when you had an amazing customer experience and you saw a company grow faster and faster because of their wonderful customer care.
Coommunity managers that repsond to clients in a time efficient manner and with a sense of humor are amazing. One time during pandemic a food delivery app had issues with the ETA of delivery, the CM provided solutions and credited the customer affected. The credit was applied to their account and available for a second time use, guaranteeing a better experience the second time.
Share a time when you had a poor customer experience (please don’t name names or organizations) and how you saw that type of poor care affect their business.
A financial insttitution was not time effective and made me go to the bank several times for the same issue, they were unable to provide a solution on the phone/email and I had to physically go into the office, this is a waste of time and energy.
When have you seen force or friction impact a company’s ability to grow?
According to me, a great product backed with faster onboarding is a force and anything which is not in like with this is friction to create customer delight.
When have you seen force or friction impact a company’s ability to grow?
Positive experience: Our customer success team is often mentioned as a differentiting factor to competitors. It is showing through referrals and increased customer engagement
Negtive experience: my personal experience with a SaaS company, when it comes to changing the type of product requested. Their inability of flexibility caused us to end business with them completely, instead of simply changing within their product offering
When have you seen force or friction impact a company’s ability to grow?
Positive Experience - We recently purchased a new dishwasher. The installer arrived early, installed the dishwasher quickly and went above and beyond in cleanup and installation. We will go back to this company for additional appliances.
Negative Experience - We found a bug in a jar of spaghetti sauce. When we contacted the company, the response was delayed and not very heartfelt. We haven't purchased that brand of spaghetti sauce since that issue.
When have you seen force or friction impact a company’s ability to grow?
Our biggest friction is generating quotes and completing security reviews in a timely manner for potential customers. We've made some human and technology investments to create more force than friction.
When have you seen force or friction impact a company’s ability to grow?
My partner and I recently bought a couch and it was a seamless experience. Starting at the website the pages to design our couch made it easy to see what it would look like and even see what it would look like in our space. The ordering process was easy and although there was a delay in delivery we consistently got updates and were always able to get questions answered swiftly.
Recently a dentist's office I went to overcharged me on a bill. It was a mistake on their end and while I did all the work to remedy the issue they provided little assistance and never offered an apology. That experience has made me question if I want to continue to go there or find a different provider.
When have you seen force or friction impact a company’s ability to grow?
1. A great example of a positive customer experience I received was at Anthropologie. From the moment I walked into the store, there was someone ready to help me get a dressing room, bring me different options to try on, and even add new styling elements to an outfit I had already picked out. They were so kind and could tell they actually cared. At the check out the cashier made sure I was enrolled in their points program and she mentioned: "So you get extra points and offers on your Birthday" which was a way she was able to make me feel special and valued. Although this is just a small retail example, they were able to sell more because they made me feel comfortable, supported, and valued from the moment I walked in.
2. A negative customer experience I faced was when I was on a family vacation recently and we purchased tickets for a tour of the town. We ended up getting stuck in a bit of traffic and being a few minutes late for our slated time. Instead of waiting for us, they took off on the trip without us. When we tried to get a refund, it was nearly impossible and was such a poor and unforgiving experience. This then caused me to leave a review of my experience which other tourists will be able to read and will factor into their decision process of the tour.
When have you seen force or friction impact a company’s ability to grow?
I'm curious about #2 - did you call the company ahead of time to tell them you were running late? Did they say they would wait for you?
I'm just thinking about the other people on the tour - maybe it would have been a huge point of friction for the people who got there early who would have then had to wait longer for it to start, or for the next tour group that may start late if they held up your earlier group. I can definitely see how your point of friction may have even been a force for someone else!
When have you seen force or friction impact a company’s ability to grow?
Amazing customer experience example: When I was reaching out to this company through a phone call, they had all my details already available through cross-reference with my phone number. This made troubleshooting my issue much easier. They were also able to 'guess' what the issue was that I was having based on a recent interaction with the website/product. Additionally, I was able to get the issue resolved without needing to be transferred to another agent.
Poor customer experience example: The opposite was true here. Even after providing special instructions for my delivery, the information that I provided was not handed off to the other people in the organization- in this case, the delivery driver. Because of this, the delivery was unsuccessful and I was charged a fee by the company.
When have you seen force or friction impact a company’s ability to grow?
I see force and friction in Nordstrom.
Examples of force is that they hire sales people to be walking the floors of the shoe department to help you find what you're looking for. These sales people deliver an amazing customer experience by bringing out all shoes you need, suggesting new shoes, and helping you determine your size and fit. Next, Nordstrom also provides free deliveries and returns, no matter what - it could have been a year since you bought the shoes, the shoes could be completely destroyed, it doesn't matter! This is a force, as they are investing $$ in this area of business. And, personally, it really delights me. I find myself promoting Nordstrom to all of my friends all the time, because of the phenomenal customer experience I always have.
Some friction in Nordstrom is that they don't have many locations. When I lived in Washington state, I had to drive over an hour to get to the nearest Nordstrom. Another example of friction are their high prices. But, they put this up front and make it clearly visible from the start, so the buyer knows what they're getting in to when looking at a pair of shoes.
When have you seen force or friction impact a company’s ability to grow?
Hi @CBecker0, thank you so much for the sharing. "Another example of friction is their high prices. But, they put this up front and make it visible from the start" ---- I bet that this is good friction. One quote I take away from the Revenue Operations course is "every high-value experience has friction". A price tag is a tool that a business can use to position and differentiate itself in the market. It works as long as the overall customer experience (particularly the peak-end) makes people feel the price tag is worth it, IMHO.
When have you seen force or friction impact a company’s ability to grow?
I love the force idea of JUMIA, an online store in my region. The entire process is easy and smooth, from shopping to check-out and payment. Also, the delivery system is superb, and customers can return products bought if they're not satisfied. I haven't talked about their feedback loop! That is the craziest. I am still being asked to review a product I bought over 3 months ago and told I can still return it if I do not like it. That confidence and trust they're building in their customers are top-notch.
When have you seen force or friction impact a company’s ability to grow?
A past company I worked for had an incredible cult following. Their product was top-notch, they did frequent releases, they built a user community, outreach to customers was timely and informative. The software itself empowered a lot of problem solving. Overall they figured out what their customers wanted by listening and having ongoing conversations and implemented processes (six sigma) to ensure things happened rapidly. One customer even sent in a picture with our logo as a tattoo he got!
Another past company I worked for got it all wrong. The service frequently broke, customer care queue was so long they enlisted the ENTIRE company to do tickets and wait times were still weeks long. That company is no longer in business.
When have you seen force or friction impact a company’s ability to grow?
I have a neighbor who started selling their homemade popsicles. Beyond having delicious product he was always prompt and kind when dealing with customers. What really accelerated his growth was by asking questions about what flavors brought up the best memories for his clients. With that info in hand, he would develop new items that went over extremely well because of the connection clients could make with their memories.
So often brands will over promise and underdeliver. Its an easy way to guarantee you wont be in business long.
When have you seen force or friction impact a company’s ability to grow?
Example of Internal Friction: The customer experince is dimished because the company does not connect the dots between their software development feedback from Customer Support effectively to the dev cycle. The customers aren't "delighted" and the Customer Support team is not empowered to increase the customers satisfaction with the company's software.
When have you seen force or friction impact a company’s ability to grow?
Example of Internal Friction
This project I was an advisor for had high staff turnover and no onboarding documentation. So many times when staff left, the hiring process was longwinded and then senior staff had to train the new people 1:1 therefore detracting away from the senior staffers main key role; to focus on the business operations.
Because of no documentation or proper structure, the company was spending its senior staff resources on training new staff. This lead to a vicious frictional halt to the flywheel in constantly missed deadlines, and underperformance and excessive overtime in simply trying to catch up with operations.
When have you seen force or friction impact a company’s ability to grow?
Costco comes to mind with force. The idea that everything you purchase is eligible for return (even half-eaten food) gives a customer confidence to buy easily with no concern. Furthermore, their return process is so easy and doesn't even require a reason or receipt and they credit you instantly for your purchase with no questions asked.
Friction is where you have to shop somewhere and see a sale or promotion, but when you reach the register or checkout, it doesn't recognize the promotional price or discount. This requires extra work, brings about aggravation to the customer and at times can lead to a lost sale as the customer isn't willing to deal with waiting for a solution from the merchant.
When have you seen force or friction impact a company’s ability to grow?
1. When I enrolled in a money mindset program, that solopreneur gives me an amazing customer journey. She is very hands-on, straight to the point, and simple when it comes to their system.
2. I enrolled in a high ticket business coaching program and I expect a LOT for it given that the price was premium but the aftercare or the customer experience is bad. I literally felt that I was robbed because I didn't receive the expected customer journey from the course.
When have you seen force or friction impact a company’s ability to grow?
1. In a retail environment, I personally experienced "Force" when the vendor credited my account immediately upon the scanning in of the Return Merchandise Label; and shipped out the replacement product, rather than delaying the shipping out of my replacement product by 10-14 business days. Within less than a year, that company has opened several distribution centers in varying states in order to further add value to the customer experience.
Similarly, I was the recipient of tremendous "Friction" and poor "Engagement" when I returned a product in person due to the fact that provider of the product had no online presence or documented Return Policy. In the face to face experience, I had to elevate the matter to the store manager in order to get a refund. My intent was to merely "exchange" the item, however; the level of poor customer engagement and customer service, led me to question the quality of the product.
It was obcvious that there were no documented "processes" and/or "workflows" in place, in order to provide a playbook for how their service representatives interfaced with their customers. Loss revenue nullifies any potential to "scale" in any business, regardless of whether the environment is a service driven business model; or a product driven business model.